The U.S. Air Force Wants Laser-Firing Jets By 2022

Back in early April, the U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff mentioned that the service will always need good pilots "who want to come in and fly the F-22, the F-35, the X-Wing fighter." Now, Gen. Mark Welsh may not have been meant that the Air Force is building a real life X-wing. But the service and its contractors are very seriously working on another part of Luke Skywalker's fighter: laser cannons.

According to Breaking Defense, Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) officials say the service wants to arm fighter jets with laser cannons by 2022. This comes from remarks made to reporters at "DoD Lab Day" recently held at the Pentagon.

It would be a daunting feat, the officials admitted, to build a system small enough to fit in an externally carried pod that could be mounted to a plane. As an interim step, AFRL might look to putting lasers on something a bit larger, like an AC-130, the ground-attack version of the C-130 Hercules transport plane.

"Tactically relevant, ruggedized, and packaged solid state laser systems in the next 5-7 years."

Aerial laser power

This isn't the first time the U.S. military has considered mounting lasers on warplanes. But these previous technologies weren't exactly practical in the real world.

Back in the mid-1990s and early 2000s, the Pentagon experimented with megawatt-class chemical oxygen-iodine laser (COIL) weapons. In a COIL, a chemical reaction between chlorine gas and a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and potassium hydroxide excites molecular oxygen. After that, you inject molecular iodine into the gas flow. The result: Another chemical reaction, and zap!

Unfortunately, though they are powerful, these chemical lasers were big, messy, and noxious, limiting their usefulness in the real world, says Kelly Hammett, chief engineer for AFRL's Directed Energy Directorate.

Airborne Laser, packed into a 747.

USAF

For example, one such chemical laser was the now-cancelled Airborne Laser (ABL), designed to destroy enemy ballistic missiles from close up. You might remember it as the laser mounted in a Boeing 747—each of the laser's six magazines was about the size of an SUV, so it had to live inside a huge aircraft. And the ABL could, at most, fire 40 shots before running of ammo. The ABL was cancelled in 2011 because its ballistic missile defense mission would have required 10 to 20 aircraft, each costing $1.5 billion.

How it will happen

Solid-state lasers rely on electricity to generate their beams, making things simpler because they don't require special fuels. The issue with these solid-state lasers has been getting them to deliver enough power on target. But advances in the technology—including increased power efficiency, smaller size, and better diffusion of waste heat—are now leading defense companies to see these system as a viable solution for military platforms, including aircraft.

Just last week, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc.—a company best known for producing Predator, Reaper, and Gray Eagle drones—announced that its High-Energy Liquid Laser (HELLADS) was being shipped to the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico for live fire tests. The 150-kilowatt HELLADS demonstrator, whose development was jointly supported by DARPA and AFRL, is designed to zap enemy rockets, mortar shells, and basically anything else flying in the air. It is also intended to engage in "a number of special applications," the company said. Whatever that means. (General Atomics declined to specify.)

Lockheed Martin has also been developing laser weapons. This past December, the company's Advanced Test High Energy Asset (ATHENA) prototype test-fired a 30-kilowatt laser at a truck more than a mile away. The beam burned through the vehicle's hood and engine manifold in seconds.

While ATHENA is a ground-based system, Lockheed is looking at other domains too. "We are pursuing demonstration and integration opportunities on land, sea, and airborne platforms to provide potential defensive and offensive future capabilities," CTO Keoki Jackson says.

Indeed, last September Lockheed Martin announced that, in conjunction with AFRL and the University of Notre Dame, it had conducted initial test flights of a beam control turret aboard a research aircraft. The company sees this a stepping-stone to eventually putting solid-state lasers onto a real warplane.

AFRL's Hammet says that there are still a few hurdles ahead in getting a laser on a jet fighter. Solid state lasers need to get smaller and lighter, while being rugged enough to operate in an airborne environment. Then there are various subsystems that need to be integrated. "A number of DoD efforts are currently underway to demonstrate tactically relevant, ruggedized, and packaged solid state laser systems in the next 5-7 years," he says.

Even if AFRL succeeds in putting lasers on a fighter jet, it would be just a demonstrator—we'd still be a few decades before planes in a war zone are blasting enemy targets from the sky with sci-fi laser power. As far as we're concerned, though, the closer we get to seeing Luke Skywalker's X-Wing actually zipping around, the better.

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